In this brilliant and groundbreaking book, New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell looks at why major changes in our society so often happen suddenly and unexpectedly. Ideas, behavior, messages, and products, he argues, often spread like outbreaks of infectious disease. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a few fare-beaters and graffiti artists fuel a subway crime wave, or a satisfied customer fill the empty tables of a new restaurant. These are social epidemics, and the moment when they take off, when they reach their critical mass, is the Tipping Point.

A compelling vision. Bold leadership. Decisive action. Unfortunately, these prerequisites of success are almost always the ingredients of failure, too. In fact, most managers seeking to maximize their chances for glory are often unwittingly setting themselves up for ruin. The sad truth is that most companies have left their futures almost entirely to chance, and don't even realize it. The reason? Managers feel they must make choices with far-reaching consequences today, but must base those choices on assumptions about a future they cannot predict. It is this collision between commitment and uncertainty that creates The Strategy Paradox.

The "singularity"--in which technological change becomes so rapid and so profound that our bodies and brains will merge with our machines.\n The Singularity Is Near portrays what life will be like after this event--a human-machine civilization where our experiences shift from real reality to virtual reality and where our intelligence becomes nonbiological and trillions of times more powerful than unaided human intelligence. In practical terms, this means that human aging and pollution will be reversed, world hunger will be solved and our bodies and environment transformed by nanotechnology to overcome the limitations of biology, including death. We will be able to create virtually any physical product just from information, resulting in radical wealth creation. In addition to outlining these fantastic changes, Kurzweil also considers their social and philosophical ramifications.

The Rise of the Creative Class gives a provocative new way to think about why people live as they do today--and where they might be headed. Weaving storytelling with masses of new and updated research, Florida traces the growing role of creativity in the economy.

The authors of this book present true and unique (mainstream) business models that have changed the world. In three parts, they present "Building Innovative Enterprises," "Creating the Markets of the Future," and "Leading Sustainable and Scalable Change." Case studies from for-profit and nonprofit social organizations are also discussed, including Whole Foods, One Laptop Per Child, Band Aid, Live Aid and Live 8.

The New Atlantis attempts to clarify the nation's moral and political understanding of all areas of technology-from stem cells to hydrogen cells to weapons of mass destruction. They hope to make sense of the larger questions surrounding technology and human nature, and the practical questions of governing and regulating science. Challenging policymakers who know too little about science, and pushing scientists who often fail to think seriously or deeply about the ethical and social implications of their work.

The first half of the Review focuses on the impacts and risks arising from uncontrolled climate change, and on the costs and opportunities associated with action to tackle it. A sound understanding of the economics of risk is critical here. The Review emphasises that economic models over timescales of centuries do not offer precise forecasts - but they are an important way to illustrate the scale of effects we might see. The second half of the Review examines the national and international policy challenges of moving to a low-carbon global economy. Climate change is the greatest market failure the world has seen. Three elements of policy are required for an effective response.

This toolkit presents a methodology for communicating innovation and the commercial opportunity that an innovation represents. It is developed for - and with - inventors, scientists and technology entrepreneurs.

VC Experts serves the needs of the private equity and venture capital communities.

Canadians are behind Java, the Blackberry, Yahoo!, Jeff Mallet, and eBay. Through an array of profiles, Innovation Nation sets out to show Canadian innovative thinking, entrepreneurial drive, and leadership capabilities.

Stanford on iTunes provides access to a wide range of Stanford-related digital audio content via the iTunes Music Store, Apple's popular music jukebox and online music store. Of particular interest are their Technology Ventures Program podcasts

Once a Harvard School of Business professor, an entrepreneur, a pianist, and currently a consultant, Kao describes the state of innovation in the US, depicting best practices and explaining how innovation works. Kao also puts forth a strategy proposal - to help the government.

The book, written by leading venture capitalist Alexander Wilmerding of Boston Capital Ventures, covers topics such What is a Term Sheet, How to Examine a Term Sheet, A Section-by-Section View of a Term Sheet, Valuations, What Every Entrepreneur & Executive Needs to Know About Term Sheets, Valuation Parameters, and East Coast Versus West Coast Rules. In addition, the book includes an actual term sheet from a leading law firm with line by line descriptions of each clause, what can/should be negotiated, and the important points to pay attention to

Kevin Werbach, a professor of legal studies and business ethics at Wharton, spoke recently with David Yaun, an IBM executive, about the company's Global Innovation Outlook project. According to Yaun, "traditionally, companies have identified innovation with gadgets and gizmos, but that thinking is being transformed." The definition of innovation is being broadened -- it is becoming more open, collaborative, global and inter-disciplinary. "The barriers to innovation and collaboration have come down dramatically," Yaun says. This was the second in a series of interviews about themes to be featured at Supernova, a conference Werbach organizes in collaboration with Wharton in San Francisco.

By identifying the structure of DNA, the molecule of life, Francis Crick and James Watson revolutionized biochemistry and won themselves a Nobel Prize. At the time, Watson was only twenty-four, a young scientist hungry to make his mark. His uncompromisingly honest account of the heady days of their thrilling sprint against other world-class researchers to solve one of science's greatest mysteries gives a dazzlingly clear picture of a world of brilliant scientists with great gifts, very human ambitions, and bitter rivalries. With humility unspoiled by false modesty, Watson relates his and Crick's desperate efforts to beat Linus Pauling to the Holy Grail of life sciences, the identification of the basic building block of life. Never has a scientist been so truthful in capturing in words the flavor of his work.

The iPod is a harbinger of a revolution in product design: innovation that targets customer emotion, self-image, and fantasy, not just product function. Read the hidden stories behind BodyMedia's SenseWear body monitor, Herman Miller's Mirra Chair, Swiffer's mops, OXO's potato peelers, Adidas' intelligent shoes, the new Ford F-150 pickup truck, and many other winning innovations. Meet the innovators, learning how they inspire and motivate their people, as they shepherd their visions through corporate bureaucracy to profitable reality. The authors deconstruct the entire process of design innovation, showing how it really works, and how today's smartest companies are innovating more effectively than ever before.

Developing clean technologies is no longer a social issue championed by environmentalists; it's a moneymaking enterprise moving solidly into the business mainstream.

Robert Lawton Burns focuses on the key role of the 'producers' as the main source of innovation in this wide-ranging analysis of business trends in the manufacturing branch of the health care industry. Written by industry academics and executives, the book provides a detailed overview of the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, genomics/proteomics, medical device and information technology sectors. Most importantly, it describes the growing convergence between these sectors and the need for executives in one sector to increasingly draw upon trends in the others.

Since ancient times, people have believed that breakthrough ideas come from the brains of geniuses with awesome rational powers. In recent years, however, the paradigm has begun to shift toward the notion that the source of creativity lies "out there," in the network of connections between people and ideas. In this provocative book, Richard Ogle crystallizes the nature of this shift, and boldly outlines "a new science of ideas." The key resides in what he calls "idea-spaces," a set of nodes in a network of people (and their ideas) that cohere and take on a distinctive set of characteristics leading to the generation of breakthrough ideas. These spaces are governed by nine laws--illuminated in individual chapters with fascinating stories of dramatic breakthroughs in science, business, and art. "Smart World" will change forever the way we think about creativity and innovation.